Which of the Founders Was a Deist? Who Cares?

August 4, 2010

I was invited to give a talk the other day about “The Myth of a Christian Nation.” This is a serious issue, even though the claim that the United States is officially a Christian nation is pure rubbish. All too many people believe this nonsense and are using it in efforts to influence our public policy and the content of our public school textbooks. But today I will not burden you with the details of the specious arguments typically offered by Christian nation advocates. Essentially, the arguments rely on disjointed snippets of American history (for example, excerpts from the Mayflower Compact, comments by various statesmen, a phrase or two from the Declaration of Independence) while ignoring or discounting the evidence most relevant to this question, namely the U.S. Constitution.

Frankly, I find this debate over the religious beliefs of the Founders not very meaningful or productive. Far too much weight is placed on this issue by some. The religious beliefs of these individuals were at most tangentially relevant to the question of whether they intended to establish a Christian nation or a secular nation that respects freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. A person may have little or no religious belief and still think that religion is useful as a manipulative tool and should be closely allied with the government. Benjamin Franklin was almost surely not an orthodox Christian; he is also the only person who proposed that the sessions of the Constitutional Convention be opened with a prayer. (His motion, fortunately, did not pass.) On the other hand, there were Christians in the 1780s, as there are Christians today, who believe in the strict separation of church and state. Madison was almost surely a Christian, yet he is, arguably, the Founder most responsible for ensuring that the United States is officially a secular nation.

If there is no logical connection between one’s personal religious beliefs and one’s commitment to church-state separation, why does this issue absorb so much attention? I understand why Christian nation advocates want to make the claim that all or almost all of the Founders were Christians. They will grasp at any straw that they (mistakenly) think will bolster their arguments. But freethinkers should recognize that the personal beliefs of the Founders are not terribly germane to the issue of whether the U.S. is a Christian nation.

It seems to me the eagerness to debate the Religious Right crazies on this issue arises at least in part from a lingering insecurity on the part of some atheists and skeptics. Despite the increase in the number of nonbelievers and the lessening of some of the stigma associated with being a nonbeliever, atheists remain a mistrusted and misunderstood minority. One reaction to this prejudice is a desire to show that some prominent individuals—individuals that others might admire—have shared our views. So we try to argue that the Founders, if not atheists, were at least very skeptical of religion. “You think George Washington was a great leader? Well, Washington was one of us; he didn’t believe that Christian crap.”

Similar motivations underlie the enthusiasm many feel for contemporary atheist celebs. How many of you have been in a conversation with fellow atheists or humanists when someone excitedly announces, “Hey, did you hear that [well-known actor, entertainer, or writer] said s/he was an atheist?” OK, so Brad Pitt told a reporter he is part-atheist, part-agnostic. And? Does this validate our beliefs?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m always happy to see atheism get some positive publicity. I’m also happy about any event that might diminish the stigma associated with being a nonbeliever—although I think ordinary people coming out and informing their friends and colleagues they are atheists probably has more of an effect than some throwaway remark by a celebrity.

But I don’t think we should invest too much time and energy in efforts to prove some Founder or another was a skeptic. First, for most of them, the historical record is much too ambiguous to draw definitive conclusions. Second, as indicated, the importance and consequences of their work are not affected by the character of their personal beliefs. Finally, we don’t need celebrity endorsements. Our views are supported by something much more secure—reason and evidence. It doesn’t really matter whether Washington didn’t take communion because he was not Christian, he didn’t believe in the ritual, or he simply didn’t want to wake up and get out of his pew.

Comments:

I agree wholeheartedly with the main point you make, and am delighted to see it articulated so well.

However, I think that the objection you make concerning the relevance of the founders’ religious beliefs does not go far enough, in a very fundamental way. Allow me to explain.

You correctly point out that too many nonbelievers buy into the idea that the founders’ religious beliefs are relevant to the question of whether they intended to establish a Christian nation or a secular nation that respects freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. This is certainly true, but who says the founders’ intentions are relevant /at all/ when it comes to matters of policy /today/?

Suppose for the sake of argument that it actually /was/ the founders’ intention to establish a Christian nation. So what? What actually matters is what the living, breathing people in our societies value /today/. And if that turns out to be different from what the founders valued or intended hundreds of years ago, who cares? Indeed, suppose the constitution actually /did/ make proclamations that contemporary society feels are no longer appropriate. Then the rational thing to do is to change the constitution to put it in line with what we want it to say, to reflect our modern values and sensibilities to the greatest extent that we can all agree on. After all, the alternative is to voluntarily sacrifice self-governance—-the very essence of democracy—-in favor of deference to the will of ghosts of some individuals who died centuries ago. I hope you will agree that no matter the qualifications and achievements of those early pioneers, this is no way to organize society for the best interest of the people.

When I, as a European, watch Americans debate whether some domestic policy is or is not in line with the “founders’ intentions”, I just want to scream and say: “No, you poor fools, you don’t understand: it is YOU who must decide what you want your country to be! It is up to you, the American people, living in a great sovereign democracy that has historically sacrificed so much to secure liberty for all (especially us Europeans), to use this freedom and hard earned self-governance to decide how you want to live side by side with your brothers and sisters on a daily basis, and how you want to build towards a better future. It is such a tragedy to see you voluntarily throw away all that you have worked for, by yielding to the whatever intentions these historical figures might have had. Free yourself from these chains, and fully embrace the immense opportunity you have to work toward your American dream, whatever you decide that to be!”.

To me as an atheist, all these quibbles over what the founders’ intended hundreds of years ago are strikingly similar to the quibbles that the religious have over what their holy books reveal about the intentions of their gods, except that the latter would actually matter if those gods turn out to exist!

In summary, I think it is both a strategic mistake and a tragic surrender of hard-earned liberty to buy into this notion that the founders’ intentions matter.

You are quite right that we are under no obligation to follow slavishly the intentions of the Founders. We have to decide for ourselves what laws and public policies should govern us today.

However, the context of my blog post was the claim by some that as a matter of historical fact, the Founders intended to establish a Christian nation. Regarding the accuracy of this claim, the Founders’ intentions are clearly relevant.

Moreover, as you recognize, the Founders’ intentions are also relevant to how we interpret the Constitution. If, for example, the Founders had the specific intention to favor religion over irreligion, and to allow the government to support religious institutions financially, then we could not honestly argue that the Constitution as written requires the separation of church and state. Of course, we would not be bound by the Founders’ intentions in the sense that we would have no right to change the Constitution. But if we wanted separation of church and state, we would have to admit that this would require an amendment to the Constitution.

So, no, we do not have to adhere to what the Founders wanted, but their actions and intentions are relevant to what measures we have to take to implement our own intentions concerning the appropriate limits on government action.

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Ron Lindsay is senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry, having previously served as president and CEO from 2008 to 2016. Prior to joining CFI, he was in private legal practice in Washington, D.C. for twenty-six years. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Georgetown University and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Among other works, he is the author of Future Bioethics: Overcoming Taboos, Myths, and Dogmas (Prometheus 2008), the entry on “Euthanasia” for the International Encyclopedia of Ethics (Wiley Blackwell 2013), and The Necessity of Secularism: Why God Can’t Tell Us What To Do (Pitchstone Publishing 2014).